


Falling Apart

by Detavot



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Relationship Study, The greater good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 19:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20605943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Detavot/pseuds/Detavot
Summary: Albus Dumbledore chasing the "Greater Good", and a young boy unraveling it.





	Falling Apart

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work to get me used to the characters. I don't feel too proud of it, but it seems good enough to share.
> 
> Constructive criticism is always welcome and very much encouraged!

Albus Dumbledore was known for not being too friendly. Of course he was warm towards people, one had to be in order to be a good teacher and public figure, but never did he enclose his secrets or even his true personality to people whom he deemed weak. It was a trait of his that people did not truly acknowledge--they most likely thought he was right to be up on his high horse with his intellect as well as raw talent when it came to all things magical. Those were the types of people Dumbledore saw as weak. Unfortunately, they were the majority.

He thought of blond curls and different coloured eyes. A charming smile. Two warm hearts beating as one. He had been the first person Dumbledore had ever truly singled out from the crowd, and Dumbledore had been the same for him. The two had been intoxicated with the feeling that finally, finally, someone had come along and, with each other, they could just be themselves. No more fake smiles. No more masks. No more fancy words or forced intrigue. With that power, they had believed they could take on the world. Dumbledore and he had known, and still knew, for a fact that they could have burned everyone into ashes and created their own paradise.

And, like the selfish, disgusting cretin he most certainly was, Dumbledore had almost thrown his wand away with that very thought in his head. He had almost never defeated the Dark Wizard (because for him, there would and could never be another man usurping his title, even as revolting as it was) back in the year of 1945, and had had only the desire to sink into his arms and watch everyone else get killed along the way.

The Potter boy was like a breath of fresh air to him.

Both of his parents dead, mistreated to the point it had stunted his growth by Muggles… And yet he had never gone or been tempted to go to the Dark Side, not like them. He had remained strong throughout his childhood and, when he had realised who exactly he was, he had never grown arrogant. He preferred honest work to laziness--though not in the areas his friends would wish. He seemed to have made up his mind about mastering the speed in which he ran towards his premature death.

Dumbledore felt like screaming every time that boy looked at him, adoration and trust so very clear in those bright green eyes. Could he not see what Dumbledore was trying to do? Could he not see that the same professor he always looked for in the crowd was planning his death behind his back? No, he did not. He believed in Dumbledore’s plans, he had not a doubt that if he enclosed his disgusting plans to the boy, he’d feel only a fleeting moment of fright before agreeing to it.

“It’s for the greater good, right, professor?” the Potter boy had told him as he looked at Dumbledore's marred, sickly right hand. Dumbledore couldn't keep himself from choking on his saliva. He looked around his office with unwarranted paranoia, he knew that no one could possibly be listening in on them, but those words never truly failed to shake his very core and keep him on edge. Harry, bless his heart, kept asking if he was okay and if there was anything he could do to help. Of course no one had talked to him about the Dark Wizard who truly mattered, he knew only the pale imitation that had made himself into something less than human, who disgraced a man who had grown so desperate and vengeful and still, somehow, remained beautiful. A creature whose followers were made up of the previous Dark Wizard’s followers who were desperate enough to try a second time.

“Don't say those words.” Dumbledore did not use the wise, warm tone of a teacher when he said that--he used the voice he had used when speaking to him on that fateful day in 1945. He growled those words, spat them out, with a hatred the boy did not deserve. Dumbledore was not Professor Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, made famous for discovering the twelve ways to use dragon blood. He was Albus Dumbledore, the wizard who used and manipulated innocent people as he played the role of God.

Harry, a very bright boy even if he was not as academically gifted as some of his peers, seemed to instinctively understand what was going on. He did not know what Dumbledore was thinking of, or whatever happened to abruptly change the professor, but he knew Dumbledore; that was enough for him to understand how to act. Dumbledore wondered, not for the first time, what would have happened if he had let Harry in on his plans.

He did not need to be a Seer to know the most likely outcome.

Harry, brimming with intellect and magical potential. Harry, discovering every secret Dumbledore had taken decades to hide. Harry, becoming even more dear to him. Harry, becoming a boy that he would have loved to adopt with…

That way lay madness.

_He_ had always told Dumbledore how soft his heart was, how he let anyone in without much thought. He had been right. Of course he had, the two of them had known each other better than they knew themselves--and Dumbledore doubted very much that this fact had changed even if they hadn't seen each other in so, so very long. He had to end this charade before things got too out of hand.

Dumbledore was a selfish man.

He wished to love and forget, he wished to die and live, he wished to win and lose. He wanted everything good from the two outcomes, and not have to choose. When he made a plan to off himself and leave his students and teachers to fight the rest of the war, the relief he felt overpowered the guilt; and he was reminded of the fact that he was nothing more than a selfish being who did not deserve the gifts he had been given. The thought gave him a rush of power that he had only ever felt in his youth. Finally, he had revealed who he was and liberated himself from the shackles he himself had tightened.

_You are too late,_ whispered the voice that would never leave him alone. He could see the sadness and longing in those two differently coloured eyes. _If only you could have admitted it to yourself earlier… We could have been home._

He visited the Mirror on what he knew was the last night he would walk these halls again. And, instead of walking these halls and seeing his students and teachers like he knew he should be, he had gone against the advice he had given young Harry. He did feel ashamed of himself, he swore it...

His eyes met the reflection’s. Dumbledore had not known what he had expected, but… Tears streamed down his face and wet his long, bushy beard. Oh, if they could see the Great Professor Dumbledore now. He wondered what Harry would think of this sight. Or Newt Scamander, whom he had not dared to bother after the war. Or Professor McGonagall, the one teacher who always believed in his plans, however ridiculous they were. He did not bother to think of what Snape would think of the sight because he already knew, he knew Snape would join him with his tears.

“I am sorry, my love,” Dumbledore whispered. In the empty room, it sounded much more like a desperate scream. “It was bound to happen sooner or later… I just happened to be more selfish. There is nothing you can do about it.” He did not acknowledge the other person in the reflection, nor the reflection of himself who was happily playing with his hand. He felt too ashamed of himself to look into those green eyes, even if they were not real this time.

When Albus Dumbledore died, Harry Potter found out many truths. Too many. They both knew it was going to happen sooner or later, Dumbledore had simply taken the burden of having to stare into those eyes as his soul was laid bare off his shoulders.

“For the greater good, was it?” Harry Potter asked to the grave, though the corpse could not hear him. He knew there was a chance that the soul was listening, at the very least. He smiled. “It is a good line, professor, even if its meaning has been warped beyond the words. Maybe not a line to be worn proudly, though.” Of course it wasn't. The greater good, no matter the meaning, would always require dirtying one’s hand.

But there was no denying that in dire situations, the greater good always needed to be done.


End file.
